in the pink
"in-the-pink" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“in the pink” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ellipsis of in the pink of health.
Corpus desk
Index EN-in-the-pink · in the pink · English
in the pink · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | in the pink |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “in the pink” in English
Rare enough to double-check
in the pink is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for in the pink, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is in the pink, spelled I-N- -T-H-E- -P-I-N-K.
Definition
- 1Ellipsis of in the pink of health.
- 2Nude, naked.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how in the pink appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The sight of so many girls and women clamoring for that particular item, cash clenched in sweaty fists, buoyed the hope of manufacturers everywhere. Then again, maybe we were simply a nation literally “in the pink” with postwar prosperity[…]
I said to Daddy, 'Can you swim?' He said, 'You're not going, and that's that.' I asked him again, later on, when he was drinking his Horlicks, and he said they used to swim from one pier IN THE PINK - Laurie Graham.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.